Mi von Ahn is a new name to us as a solo performer but she has paid us a visit in the past, in August of last year in fact, as one half of Aery, alongside Joel Gabrielsson, two indie/alt electronic specialists with a love for soundscapes, strangely doing their composing from different ends of the country and giving the old Zoom a battering I guess.
Now she returns with her second and final offering ahead of the solo album ‘Delta Veins’ which is scheduled for release on 6th November.
The main track of what is a double single release is called ‘Dadjat ii (II)’, which doesn’t translate into English from Swedish and looks like it belongs somewhere in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
But I should have known better. It’s actually the North Sami language from that sub-Arctic wilderness that crosses Norway, Sweden and Finland, and it translates as ‘to say no’ (and probably twice, I assume).
It concerns the arduous process of stretching your limits further and further until you finally realise you have nothing left to give, you’ve reached breaking point and have to stop overextending yourself. No means no, and not just when the attention is getting steamy.
And if I read it right, by inference she’s also inviting you interpret a climate connotation as well.
Drawing a line and setting boundaries seems to be her thing and the song serves as a continuation of themes from a previous track from ‘Delta Veins’ and may well turn out to be the fundamental tenet of the album.
She’s like a heavier, darker version of Massive Attack, shipped from Bristol to Lapland in the winter twilight in July and yes I am thinking of ‘Teardrop’.
The song is even a little moody and unsettling and that sensation is enforced by the video (which you can watch via the Spotify link, the preview version of which is below) which has Mi wandering around the tundra wasteland against the backdrop of a black sun, and in some shots looking like she’s stood next to a very large black and white cow.
If you ever watched any of the very arty but weird films they made in Iceland in the 1990s, partly to portray the country as a bit ‘off the wall’ to potential tourists, then you’ll recognise the style.
If you like thought-provoking, evocatively melancholic (something only the Swedes can do) but vaguely disconcerting work like this you’ll love it. If you don’t, then watch and listen to it a couple of times and you will.
(Continues after the Spotify link).
I should also mention ‘Varje gång vi hörs kan det va för sent’ (‘Every time we speak, it might be too late’), a Swedish language song that is the other part of the double release and which stands in contrast as something which falls somewhere between what you might find in the soundtrack of a Michael Mann directed movie and Soffía Björg’s ‘The Road.’
Again that’s Icelandic and as I encounter more of these Sami songs I increasingly sense a strong connection between these places.
(Continues again after the Spotify link)
Find her on:
Website: https://www.mivonahn.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mivonahnmusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mivonahn/ Bandcamp: https://mivonahnofficial.bandcamp.com/
